The Ideal Time of the Day to Do an Infrared Building Inspection on Your Home

Here’s a simple run down on why we use the cameras we do, and why a thermal imaging inspection on your home could be more effective early in the morning or late in the afternoon, rather than the middle of the day…

The problem with our real world environment is that for a majority of the day say between 10am and 3pm our environment is very much in equilibrium (i.e. very little difference between inside and outside of a building). Early morning and late afternoon our environment is in a “heating” or “cooling” phase, giving us a good differential or change in our environment. Good thermal imaging camera operators will always take advantage of these two keys times, however, practically, it does not leave a lot of the day to work with, so that’s why our company (NZ Leak & Heat Loss Detection Ltd.) use a highly sensitive camera that can work at all hours of the day.

For example: An infrared camera of average sensitivity makes it very difficult to work in the middle part of the day, and you simply just won’t see a void in the wall, moisture, stud or missing insulation. You will just get a uniform surface with no apparent defect at all. So if the camera is sub-standard, or operator is not properly trained and certified, it is impossible to know what he/she is NOT SEEING, when they are using a camera of average sensitivity. Defects such as excess moisture in the wall, floor or ceiling simply won’t appear, and you have nothing to reference it against. Consequently, that is why we use the appropriate camera because we need to work in “less than ideal” times, i.e. during the day. In saying that, there are many applications that we need to do late at night, or very early morning when the environmental conditions are optimal, or we would simply be wasting ours and your time during the day (rendered facade on high rise, concrete cancers etc). (Thanks to IPI Australia for some of the above info).

Our cameras are highly accurate, and re-calibrated once per year to assure accuracy.

Would you prefer to turn a blind eye to what’s behind your walls, and get a nasty surprise down the track? We can do a scan of your home in less than an hour in some cases, and you can have a piece of mind in the process!